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Monday, January 2, 2017

2016 Publishing Wrap-Up

For all intents and purposes, 2016 was my second full year of self-publishing. Here's how everything shook out in the year...

First off, I published 3 more titles, bringing my total of published titles to 7. In Deep Wish went live in March. Fertile Ground went live in May. Up Wish Creek went live in September. Natural Causes was supposed to be live in November, but due to a case of burn out (I crashed and burned), that didn't happen.

My other titles sold as follows in 2016:Dying Embers = 300.39Accidental Death = 46.58Wish in One Hand = 154.07Blood Flow = 51.79

As you can probably guess, I did some advertising for Dying Embers and some for Wish in One Hand. I also did some advertising for Blood Flow, but the numbers don't bear that out quite as well.

All in all I sold 692.63 books in 2016. 500 of those were whole books (490 ebooks, 3 print books) and 199.63 were books in KU pages*. As for KU, this year people read 79650 pages worth of my books. Sounds like a lot, but like I said, it only works out to about 200 books.

Last year was, of course, better. I finished 2015 with 1016.77 books sold and only 4 books available. But my advertising budget was bigger last year. I expect that accounts for most of the difference in sales numbers.

Here's the month by month:

January = 15.28
February = 30.40
March = 90.97
April = 28.13
May = 193.41
June = 115.04
July = 44.57
August = 20.46
September = 19.56
October = 10.30
November = 94.39
December = 30.11

You can tell where I did advertising and/or promotions.

This year I averaged $1.14 per book. Last year, I averaged $1.34 books. I attribute that to selling more paperbacks last year and having more 99c sales this year.

If you're still with me after all that, here're the grand totals for my 2 year self-publishing experience...

This has netted me just over $2100. We won't talk about what I've spent - mainly because I would rather not look at that data right now. Let's just say it's enough to pay off Dying Embers and part of Accidental Death. Woo.

As always, my experiences may not be your experiences. I post this to show others what the hard numbers are, so they can be informed about going the self-publishing route. It ain't the easy road to wealth and happiness. At least it hasn't been for me. Good thing this is a labor of love.

Sometimes I wonder whether I should've just continued to try and get traditionally published. Then I hear about another publisher going belly up and screwing both readers and writers. That shit totally makes me happy where I am, even if I'm not shooting toward the top of the bestsellers lists and buying a new car with my profits**.

Anyway, if you purchased any of my books, I'm totally grateful and I hope you enjoyed the read. If you get a chance, leave a review on Amazon for me and/or rate it on Goodreads. I'd really appreciate that, too.

*I use formulas for each book - Pages Read divided by Total Pages - to calculate how much of a book someone in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service has read.

** In case you're wondering, I drive a 2003 Chevy Cavalier. It looks like hell, but it's only got 70K miles and it runs like a dream... :fingers crossed it lasts at least another year: :knocks on wood, too, for good measure:

2 comments:

Interesting figures. I really think the economy and consumer confidence had a lot to do with 2016 numbers. Interestingly, November and December went like gangbusters for me, compared to the rest of the year. And this year was way down from last year, even with the surge and several new titles added to my list. Publishing is a tough business at the moment. I haven't even come close to cracking the code. I just keep plodding along because I don't know any better. Besides, I don't know how to do anything else at this point besides creating stories in my head and writing them down. My imagination has gotten worse with age (in the sheer number of ideas) instead of being all copacetic and shi-stuff. Happy New Year! Here's to a better year for all of us.

Yeah, I dunno. Could be that. I've heard some people complain their numbers are down because of the sheer influx of titles. I'm blaming advertising (or lack thereof) right now because that's the only thing I have any control over. Well, that and making my books the best they can be. Which is why I don't have a publishing schedule right now - no fundage for editing at the moment. Like you, though, I'm plodding along.

Happy New Year! Definitely, here's to a better year for us all. :hugs:

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Who I Am

Writer of suspense, speculative fiction (aka dystopian, futuristic, post-apocalyptic... pick one, they all work), and urban fantasy for the adult market. Minor conspiracy theorist and major hermit, armchair Jeopardy! champion and fount of useless knowledge, pessimistic optimist and hopeful romantic, B.E. Sanderson spends her time reading, writing, gardening, and generally enjoying life with her husband and their cat.